Oral cancer awareness and knowledge: Survey of dentists in Democratic Republic of the Congo

Oral cancer (OC) is one of the global diseases that is the eighth rank among different others. Early intervention therapy had a positive impact on increasing the prognosis and the survival rate up to 5 years. The aim of the current study was to evaluate the knowledge, attitude, and practice of dentists about OC in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Materiel and Methods: It was a cross-sectional analytical survey conducted in the primary oral health care centers in DR. Congo from February to April 2021. Only dentists working at any of the primary oral health care centers, public or private was included. Data were collected by using a survey of a 33-item questionnaire. The practice level, knowledge, risk factors, diagnosis for OC, attitude, and opinions of the dentists were recorded and evaluated. The SPSS 20 was used for data analysis and P < 0.05 was considered significant. Results: Out of 162 dentists recorded, 65.4% were male and 34.6% were females. Half of the dentists (50.6%) had more than 5–15 years of practical experience, and 81.5% of the participants were general practice dentists. A majority of dentists were not familiar with the proper physical oral examination steps (80.2%). The practice level of the dentists was highly poor. The knowledge level about clinical features and diagnostic procedures (frequent anatomical region, common type of OC, associated factor with OC, frequent stage diagnosis of OC, and condition associated with OC) was very low. The dentists’ gender was associated with a poor level of practice (P = 0.009). However, the age experience of work was associated with the high knowledge of the clinical presentation of oral cancer (P = 0.040). Conclusion: The dentists in DRC have obvious problems in the knowledge of OC diagnosis. More continued education and training programs for dentists would serve to address the knowledge deficits and practice shortcomings about oral cancer screening, prevention, and early detection